Today’s consumers are weary of obvious salesy rhetoric and ignore a majority of the bazillion ads they encounter every day. And as the recession wears on and unemployment rates remain high, many are reevaluating their life choices, turning from materialistic interests and seeking deeper meaning for greater satisfaction.

Some companies are acknowledging this search for meaning and are finding creative ways to provide greater value in their marketing. The marketing itself is improving consumers’ lives by helping them meet deeper needs while helping to enhance the brand name.

Are consumers in general more “enlightened” than in previous generations? You wouldn’t know if by watching “Bridezillas,” but there are signs that consumers are more evolved than we give them credit for. It’s obvious, for example, that green living is no longer just a grassroots movement but a corporate mission for most companies. And a recent study shows that volunteerism is on the rise.

The drive to find greater personal fulfillment by many in the population was acknowledged decades ago by humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). Maslow defined five levels of human needs that range from the very basic to very high-level. In a nutshell, the five levels are:

Physiological. Needs that are basic to survival, such as water, air, food and sleep

*”What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization…It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”

This hierarchy is brought into a marketing context in a new book due to be released in October 2009. Written by Bob Gilbreath, “The Next Revolution in Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning” encourages marketers to be aware of the different need levels of our audiences and offer value in our marketing to help fulfill them. Gilbreath created a three-tiered marketing hierarchy (yes, another hierarchy) loosely based on Maslow’s.

Level 1: solution marketing adds value to those seeking to fulfill more basic needs. Such marketing efforts could include money-saving coupons, rebates and rewards programs.

Level 2: connection marketing delivers value to those seeking more social or creative expression and corresponds to Maslow’s middle category.